Casey’s Pawns - Prague
Date:
2007
Ref:
2051
Materials:
Public intervention in the city of Prague with 50 volunteers
Exhibition history:
2007 11th Prague Quadrennial of Performance and Theatre, Prague, Czech Republic
Courtesy:
Lucy + Jorge Orta
Casey’s Pawns originated as a silent peace intervention commissioned by the Victoria and Albert Museum in June 2004, in response to the escalating conflict in Iraq. In 2007, the perforamnce was reactivated for the 11th Prague Quadrennial, whose programme placed particular emphasis on live performance, site-specific work and interventions throughout the streets of the city. On 19 June, fifty performers moved through central Prague in the combat suits, carrying the work beyond the museum and into civic space.
Moving in choreographed formations, the anonymous militarised figures confronted pedestrians with an ambiguous and disturbing presence. The rigid discipline of the uniforms and formations, repeatedly disrupted and reassembled, evoked command, obedience and the vulnerability of bodies caught within systems of conflict.
The intervention culminated in a collective action at Hradčany Square, directly in front of Prague Castle — for centuries a seat of political power and today the seat of the Czech head of state. In this charged setting, the silent gathering of hooded, uniformed bodies acquired an intensified political resonance. By inserting the visual language of military authority into an everyday public space associated with state power, Casey’s Pawns brought the realities of contemporary conflict into closer proximity with the public.